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Cleo Powell
2011 - Present
2035
14
Cleo Powell is a judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia. She assumed office on August 1, 2011. Her current term ends on August 1, 2035.
Powel was elected by the Virginia Legislature in July 2011, and re-elected in 2023 to a term expiring on August 1, 2035.[1] To read more about judicial selection in Virginia, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[2] Powell received a confidence score of Mild Democrat.[3] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Powell received her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in 1979 and her J.D. from University of Virginia School of Law in 1982.[4] Powell began her legal career in private practice. From 1986 to 1989, she served as an assistant attorney general for the state. She then worked as corporate counsel and director of Employee Services for Virginia Power. In 1993, Powell joined the 12th Judicial Circuit, serving as a general district and circuit judge in Chesterfield County. Eight years later she was elected to the Virginia Court of Appeals in 2008. In 2011, the Virginia Legislature elected her to the Virginia Supreme Court.[5][6] On each court Powell served on, she was the first African-American woman to do so.[7]
Powell named an Influential Woman of Virginia by Lawyer's Weekly, and an Outstanding Woman of Virginia by Ebony Magazine.
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Appointments
2011
Powell was elected by the Virginia Legislature to the Virginia Supreme Court in 2011.[5]
2008
Powell was elected to the Virginia Court of Appeals in 2008.[5]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[8]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[9]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Cleo
Powell
Virginia
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Democrat - Judicial Selection Method:
Direct legislative appointment - Key Factors:
- Held political office as a Democrat
- Was a registered Democrat before 2020
Partisan Profile
Details:
Powell was Assistant Attorney General of Virginia to Mary Terry (D). She was a registered Democrat before she was appointed to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Other Scores:
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.
Powell received a campaign finance score of 0.3, indicating a conservative ideological leaning. This was more conservative than the average score of 0.11 that justices received in Virginia.
The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[10]
State supreme court judicial selection in Virginia
- See also: Judicial selection in Virginia
The seven justices of the supreme court are elected by a majority vote of both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly.[11] Supreme court justices serve 12-year terms. At the end of their terms, judges must be re-selected by the legislature just as they initially were.[11]
Qualifications
To serve on the supreme court, a judge must be:
- a state resident; and
- a state bar member for at least five years.[12]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the court is selected by peer vote. The supreme court chief justice serves in that capacity for four years.[13]
Vacancies
When the General Assembly is in session, midterm vacancies are filled by the same legislative selection process normally used to select judges. When the assembly is not in session, the governor appoints a replacement to serve until 30 days after the start of the next session, by which point a judge must be elected to the seat.[14][15]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Virginia's Legislative Information System, "SR 93 Judge; nomination for election to Supreme Court of Virginia," accessed July 24, 2023
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ Times Dispatch "Powell sworn in as justice on Virginia Supreme Court," archived January 11, 2012
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 The VLW Blog, "Powell invested on Court of Appeals," November 17, 2008
- ↑ Washington Post, "Northern Virginia gets three new judges" April 28, 2011
- ↑ Dominion, "2006-2012 Honoree Archive: 2011 Cleo E. Powell, J.D.," archived October 22, 2014
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Commonwealth of Virginia Division of Legislatie Services, "A Legislator's Guide to the Judicial Selection Process," accessed April 16, 2025
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
- ↑ Commonwealth of Virginia Division of Legislative Services, Judicial Selection Overview, accessed April 16, 2025
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
Federal courts:
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Eastern District of Virginia, Western District of Virginia • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Eastern District of Virginia, Western District of Virginia
State courts:
Virginia Supreme Court • Virginia Court of Appeals • Virginia Circuit Courts • Virginia District Courts • Virginia Magistrates
State resources:
Courts in Virginia • Virginia judicial elections • Judicial selection in Virginia
